jürgen fauth’s muckworld

With The Wire finally out of the way — none of the screeners piling up by the door could possibly compete — I’ll try and quickly catch up with some of the bat-free movies I’ve seen over the last few weeks.

Charlie Bartlett
Warm and funny coming-of-teenage tale about a wealthy kid (Anton Yelchin) who dispenses wisdom and prescription drugs in the public school bathroom and falls for the principal’s daughter (Kat Dennings). Scenes, situations, and jokes seem to have been lifted from Rushmore in their entirety, but Charlie Bartlett’s wry tone owes at least as much to Harold and Maude, which is referenced in a hilarious rendering of “If You Want to Sing Out”. With Hope Davis and Robert Downey Jr.  Jon Poll, 2007. ***

Romance & Cigarettes
I was with John Turturro’s mainly silly, occasionally transcendent musical about a suburban marriage threatened by the man’s flaming passion for a filthy-mouthed red head (Kate Winslet) until the final maudlin twist ruined it for me. With James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Steve Buscemi, Mandy Moore, Christopher Walken, Barbara Sukowa, and Mary-Louise Parker. John Turturro, 2005. **

Wall-E
Cute but overpraised. The wordless first act and the robots’ weightless space dance reach moments of poetry, but when the plot takes over, the movie flattens out into predictable kid’s fare. The puffy, grub-like humans are painful to look at. Andrew Stanton, 2008. ***

Hancock
Did low expectations and the unsuspected pleasure of sneaking into this movie on our way out of Wall-E warp my judgment? Possibly — but I thoroughly enjoyed Hancock’s antics, Jason Bateman’s schmuck shtick, and the revelation of Charlize Theron’s secret — even if I forgot all about it half an hour later. Peter Berg, 2008. ***

Mad Detective (Sun taam)
The title’s the pitch: this time around, Johnny To’s hero is an investigator who, when he goes off his meds, can see people’s “inner personalities.” With his usual economy and panache, To cleverly uses the possibilities of this damaged character for a witty & involving crime story.  Johnny To, 2007. ***

Hotel America (Hôtel des Amériques)
First of the four films in a new André Téchiné (The Witnesses, Strayed, Changing Times) box set we’re very excited about. Set in Biarritz, Hotel America is about a lone woman with a history (Catherine Deneuve) and her amour fou for the shady, needy operator of a bed and breakfast. André Téchiné, 1981. ***

The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Never more than a passing fan of the series, I was nonetheless glad to see David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson on the big screen again. Unlike most critics, I found the film’s modesty admirable — no globe-spanning alien conspiracies here, just a solid, creepy thriller plot and enjoyable interaction between Mulder and Scully. I wasn’t particularly bothered by the admittedly heavy-handed thematic overlay, and while it’s true that most of the film plays like a supersized TV episode, it earned its right to be a movie in the final scenes. Chris Carter, 2008. ***

The Wedding Director (Il Regista di matrimoni)
After a run-in with the law, a famous director ends up in Sicily, where an impoverished Prince hires him to film the wedding of his daughter. At least I think that’s what happens in this intriguing, multi-layered, and surreal movie that felt like the sun-bathed love-child of Lynch and Fellini. Anything that ends in fireworks and features Italian ingenues as beautiful as Donatella Finocchiaro is ok by me. Marco Bellocchio, 2006. ***

Furthermore:
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Joss Whedon, 2008. ****
Fear(s) of the Dark (Peur(s) du noir). Blutch et al, 2007. About.com review coming soon. **
In Search of a Midnight Kiss. Alex Holdridge, 2007. About.com review in the works. ***
Dreams with Sharp Teeth. Erik Nelson, 2008. ***
Charly. Isild LeBesco, 2007. ***
Charly Wilson’s War. Mike Nichols, 2007. **
Grosse Pointe Blank. George Armitage, 1997. ***
The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite). Faith Akin, 2007. ****
Battlestar Galactica, Season 4 (half). ****

Awards season has begun in earnest, preparations for the About.com redesign are in high gear, and the Phil Lesh Halloween extravaganza and marathon is upon us, so I’m resurrecting a category from the early days of muckworld, when everything was still hidden behind a password and we had a grand total of four (4) readers: that’s right, “Konsum” is back, a.k.a the sloppy roundup of everything I’ve been watching/eating/reading. We’ll get back to meatier individual posts as soon as the dust settles.

The photos above are from from last Saturday’s panel “Haverford and the Power of the Pen,” a title that makes me giggle and think of Indiana Jones. From left to right in the top picture: Luke, the friendly student moderator, Marcy Dermansky, author of Twins, David Behrman, publisher, Richard Lingeman, author/editor The Nation, Ron Christie, author of Black in the White House, and Alison Grambs, Friar’s Club writer and author of The Smart Girl’s Guide to Getting Even. In the photo on the right, Christie, Marcy, and Behrman. With a roster this diverse, the resulting discussion was plenty interesting, but I couldn’t stop thinking: we’re now one degree of separation from both Victor Navasky and Dick Cheney. Eek! More photos from Haverford and Bryn Mawr at flickr. On to the movies:

Diva
Film Forum is rereleasing this celebrated 1981 French film, and the press notes they’re handing out might as well have a fat disclaimer on top: anything you may have to say about his movie is redundant. There are pages of raves here by Pauline Kael and the like, along with a fascinating interview with Beineix that moots whatever you might want to add. Yes, Diva sparkles with ideas, every shot is a delight, every element aims to please — it’s a joyous celebration of the possibilities of cinema. Regardless, I better get a review ready for the Friday opening. Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981. *****

Open Hearts
Where does domestic melodrama end and soap opera begin? Susanne Bier’s dogme drama doesn’t care. Mads Mikkelsen is excellent as a doctor who falls in love with the fiancee of the guy his wife put into a coma. There’s a whiff of General Hospital about all of this, but it should go without saying that the acting and writing are far superior. Still: lots of people talking about theiremotioms in hallways. From the director of After the Wedding and Things We Lost in the Fire. Elsker dig for evigt. Susanne Bier, 2002. ***

Things We Lost in the Fire
Look, it’s a foreign film with Hale Berry, Bencio del Toro, and David Duchovny. Another Bier melodrama, this one slightly more appealing than Open Hearts because of del Toro and those adorable children. I’m hoping Marcy will review this for About. Susanne Bier, 2007. ***

Knocked Up
Another faux-transgressive family values commercial by Judd Apatow, filled with improbable characters and unbelievable plot developments. The jokes are funny exactly to the degree that you consider them “racy.” I laughed twice and shook my head the rest of the time. Who the hell are these people? Judd Apatow, 2007. *

Wheel of Time
Herzog gets fantastic footage documenting a Buddhist ritual in Bodh Gaya, India, but the film loses steam when when the action moves to Graz, Austria. The sand mandala is amazing, and who doesn’t want to see Werner cracking jokes with the Dalai Lama? Werner Herzog, 2003. ***

Zodiac
Reception of this Fincher epic was mixed, but I found the twists and turns of the hunt for the late-sixties California serial killer extremely compelling. Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. are a great trio of leading men, and there’s an old-fashioned, All the President’s Men feel to the film. Because it’s based on a true, unsolved case, there’s no telling where the narrative will go next. Freed from the confines of formula, Zodiac also becomes a study of the nature of obsession. David Fincher, 2007. ***

Michael Clayton
Solid legal thriller about the moral quandry of a man who finds himself on the wrong side of an Erin Brockovich class action suit. George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, and Sidney Pollack are spot-on and the narrative is laid out without condescension. Tony Gilroy, 2007. ***

La Jetee
It’s always good to revisit the classics. YouTube has the entire film but Criterion is nicer. Chris Marker, 1962. *****

Citizen Kane
Like I said. There’s always new things to admire in Welles’s masterpiece–this time I was concentrating on details of the elaborate narrative structure. Orson Welles, 1941. *****

It Is Fine. EVERYTHING IS FINE!
Crispin Glover’s second film as a director, a mad sex murder mystery featuring a hero/villain with cerebral palsy, will require a few more days to digest. I’ll confess right here that I might have walked out if Mr. Glover himself hadn’t been guarding the doors; in the end I’m glad I stayed. He also performs a slide show with the film that has to be seen to be believed. David Brothers and Crispin Hellion Glover, 2007. ***

Bonus: I always thought that the Grateful Dead’s “Dire Wolf” was inspired by the Zodiac killer, but I can’t seem to find a reference for this — not even at David Dodd’s Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics. Here’s a video of an acoustic ‘81 version anyway:

It’s a tough life in the neighborhood, and I ought to know: Dito Montiel’s coming-of-age drama (there’s that phrase again) about getting the hell out of Queens and coming back all grown up is set right here in Astoria. Recognizing the streets beneath the rumbling N train, the Greek restaurants and garishly lit corner delis kept me entertained for a while, but from what I can tell, Astorians these days don’t have quite as much bad sex in stairwells and fewer baseball bat fights over graffiti than Dito and his buddies. The scenes between Young Dito (Shia LaBeouf) and his girlfriend Laurie (Melonie Diaz) are sweet, but their grown-up counterparts Robert Downey Jr. and Rosario Dawson don’t have a whole lot to do. As Dito’s parents, Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest get an overripe “Daddy never loved me” storyline, and in the end, everything’s wrapped up much too neatly. If you only have time for one low-income NYC neighborhood drama, make it Raising Victor Vargas.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. Dito Montiel, 2006. **

[tags]film, 2 stars, robert downey jr., rosario dawson, dito montiel, astoria, nyc, photos, queens, coming of age, baseball bats, teenagers, sex[/tags]